Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Title:

The name of the film came from a list of title names we made and this was the one that stood out the most as it means a secret plan to commit an unlawful or harmful act and our film is about a murder that takes place. 

We looked at various films to get an idea of what font and overall look we should have for our film title. The one film we took the idea of font from was Shutter Island, as we really liked the look of it. We can see that the Shutter Island title is in capital letters to make it stand out and we thought this would be a good style to have. We also tried to get a similar font as Shutter Island, as it is very easier to read as well as the colour we chose, which was a very light blue. This also makes it easy to read as the contrast of colours work really well in my opinion.

Opening Credits:

For the opening credits, these too were heavily influenced by the opening credits of Shutter Island. We took Shutter Islands opening credits and added our own made up credits, which turned out to be a pretty good opening for our film.

Our Opening Credits

Shutter Island Opening Credits

Setting and Location:

The location for our production to be filmed was an open field. We thought this would be a suitable place as it looks a spooky and remote place. Not many films use a field for a good location to film but we thought it would be effective as there is no one around but the protagonist and antagonist. 


In comparison to Shutter Island, which is what we based a lot of our film off of, we can see that the setting for that particular film is very remote in the middle of the ocean. This could of been used to set a mysterious feeling for the audience as it looks like an unwelcoming places.




For this particular scene, we wanted the antagonist to have a base of operations and we thought a good place would be an abandoned warehouse. So this what this shot was meant to connote with the antagonist cleaning his many knives.

In the highly successful action thriller franchise Fast and Furious, they used many base of operations through out the many films. As we can see in this shot, the crew had a huge warehouse for a base of operations. However, we did not have access to a warehouse so we had to improvise and use a room where it gives the impression of a warehouse being used.




Costume and Props:

The costume for our antagonist was an all black attire as it shows that the character is a dark and suspicious. The finger-less gloves gives the character a thug like attitude. We gave him joggers and a leather jacket to also show a thuggish character and a black beanie hat which made him more hidden and suspicious.  
   

The props we used were all these knives shown below. This shows the antagonist has a collection of murderous knives for any of his victims. The one we used however was the one at the bottom of the collection of knives. On the right is an action shot of the antagonist running after his victim wearing his black attire with the knife in his right hand.

A knife is a very popular murderous weapon within mainly horror movies but also thrillers. It is a sleek and silent way of killing someone which is why we used it in our film.






How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film we have the one character which is the murderer wearing all black and having a knife as a weapon connoting the rough teenage group who wear hoodies and are often involved with crime and harassment. However the other character is just a usual student wearing regular clothes and is the victim of the murderer showing how he is the complete opposite being targeted by the violent teenage group. 

In our media production, we did not use a typical murder antagonist. Ours was slightly different from other films which consist of murderers. Some murderers in films do not wear clothes to stay hidden such as the Bourne films shown below, even though this main character is more of assassin in than a murderer. We thought it would build more of a tension between the audience and the film if the character was to stay more hidden.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I feel that our media production would be distributed by the micro end of distribution by using social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook. That way we may possibly get an interest from people to watch our film. I think this because for our film production we had no budget and used the basic tools such as a HD Sony Handycam and iMovie and Final Cut. 

Lower End Production Companies

Here are three lower end production companies, Red Hour Films, Film 4 and Warp Films. These companies distribute films budgeted around the £1-£2 million mark. A good example is the film Submarine which was made for £1.5 million and was distributed by these three companies.

Higher End Production Companies

Here are three higher end production companies, Universal, Paramount and Lionsgate. These companies distribute films budgeted from £40 million up to £100 million and over. These allow much higher budgeted films to be distributed as they can afford to do so. The higher production companies are always the ones to distribute very popular films every year.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Previously, during our production research we decided our production would target the audiences of Creatives, Indie Scenesters, Stylers and Trendies, as circled in the picture below.

A Group of Friends Suitable for our Target Audience:

This particular group of friends enjoy watching films together, especially Thrillers. Their ages range from 18 to 21 which fit in nicely with the statistics in the table above. Since our film is of the Thriller genre, they would be suitable viewers as they all like thriller films.

How did you attract/address your audience?

For opening to our film, we played mysterious slow tempo music whilst the credits were showing, with the music slowly fading and ending as the title fades to officially start the film. When the title shows, "The Conspiracy", the audience will immediately know that this film will be a mystery throughout as Conspiracy means a secret plan to commit an unlawful or harmful act.

When the film starts, the audience is already among the action as a chase scene is taking place. It is fast paced and intense as the antagonist is after the protagonist with a eerie, mysterious soundtrack whilst the chase is on. A thriller fan will straight away be attracted to the film. 

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task I have learnt a lot in the progression to the full product. In the preliminary we did not have a lot of shot variations, it mainly consisted of medium shots. However, in the full product we used a lot more shot types such as close ups, long shots and medium shots. We also used POV shots to get a personal perspective of the antagonist in the full product. Another aspect of the full product was the use of more transitions and filters. In our preliminary task we used one or two transitions, where as in our full product we used multiple transitions as well as filters too, which we also did not use in our preliminary task. Overall, I have learnt a lot from the preliminary task to the full product.